Bed of Roses (36 page)

He plucked a single red wildflower and brushed it along the hollow between her breasts, then twirled the crimson petals over the intricate facets of her sapphire. “But I wasn’t there, and I can’t skip back over eight months to make it so. I thank you again, Zafiro. For taunting me into meeting sadness head-on. If not for you…”

He left his statement unfinished as he pondered what she meant to him.

If not for Zafiro he would still be wandering. He doubted seriously that he would have stayed with the nuns for long.

If not for Zafiro he would not have gained a sense of purpose. Rebuilding her home had not been easy, but the strenuous work and the knowledge that his skills were needed and appreciated had made him feel worthwhile again.

If not for Zafiro he would not have laughed. The daft woman had him smiling almost at every turn.

If not for Zafiro he would not have found his past. True, she hadn’t meant to be captured by the men who’d taken her, but her being in the wrong place at the right time and his subsequent fear for her safety had effectively returned his memory.

And last and perhaps most important of all, if not for Zafiro he would not be lying in this blossomy meadow, beneath the mountain moon and speaking of his acceptance of his family’s deaths. She’d pushed him into releasing his horror, his grief, and for that he would remember and thank her for the rest of his days.

“Sawyer?”

“Mmm?”

“About Luis…”

Apprehension almost turned him inside out.

Luis.

With all the many things that had happened today, he’d forgotten Zafiro’s fear of her cousin.

“Sawyer,” Zafiro murmured, “I just wanted to tell you that the feeling of danger I had—that sense of something bad about to happen—it is gone now.”

He frowned when she turned her face away from him. “Gone?”

She gave a slight nod and nervously ran her hand through the billows of grass and flowers. “I think… I think the feeling came from the men who caught me today. Now that they can no longer hurt me or anyone else at La Escondida, the feeling of danger has gone. I…I thought at first maybe they were Luis’s men, but I know now they were not. I am not afraid anymore.”

She was lying through those perfect white teeth of hers, and he knew it. The feeling she had of coming danger wasn’t gone. It followed her like an evil phantom that took his ease in her shadow.

She was lying so he wouldn’t feel guilty when he left in the morning. So he could return to his brothers and sister free of worry.

But her attempts to reassure him failed. Sawyer still wasn’t sure he believed in her sixth sense for danger, but his own beliefs didn’t matter.

It was the fact that Zafiro believed them that was important. After he left she would continue to be afraid. Would continue to gaze at the mountain ridges, wondering when Luis would find and steal her away.

Himself, Sawyer didn’t believe Luis would find La Escondida. The hideaway more than lived up to its name: “The Hidden.”

But she would worry, he knew.

There was also her problem of providing for her charges. He could bring down more game for her in the morning, but the meat wouldn’t last through the winter. Before the cold had ended she and her people would again be hungry.

But he couldn’t stay. He just couldn’t. He’d left four children in Synner, Texas. Children he loved every bit as much as he would have had they been the natural offspring of his parents.

Zafiro, Tia, Azucar, Maclovio, Lorenzo, and Pedro needed him, yes.

But Ira, Tucker, Jesse, and Jenna were his family. And he owed it to his slain parents to take care of them.

His mind spun with possible solutions to his dilemma, and in only a moment an answer came to him.

Money.

With money Zafiro could purchase everything she needed to provide for herself and her elderly dependents. If she remained wary of leaving the hideaway, she could ask the good sisters to do her shopping for her.

Yes, money was the solution.

And Sawyer knew exactly how to acquire the money she needed.

Night Master was going to ride again.

H
er stomach full after having
eaten Tia’s delicious meal of fresh venison, Zafiro fought to keep her eyes open. She sat at the table with Tia and Sawyer, the others having gone to bed hours earlier.

The aftereffects of her day made her limbs feel leaden. The abduction. Her battle with her captors. The shock of learning who Sawyer was. The overwhelming compassion and need to help that she’d felt when he’d refused to give in to his grief. Their lovemaking.

And the all-consuming sorrow she felt over his impending departure.

She wanted to stay awake all night with him. Talking. Holding him. Hearing and branding into her heart the last things he would ever tell her.

But try as she did, she could no longer fight her exhaustion. Her mind as weary as her body, she began to nod off to sleep right in her chair.

“Pobrecita,”
Tia said, watching Zafiro. “Poor little thing. She is very tired, Francisco.”

Having been wondering when Zafiro would finally give in to her fatigue, Sawyer smiled and rose from his own chair to lift her into his arms.

“I do not want to go to bed, Sawyer,” she mumbled into his shoulder. “I am not sleepy one bit.”

“Yes, Zafiro, I can see that you’re wide awake,” Sawyer answered when she promptly fell back to sleep.

“I will help you put her to bed, Francisco,” Tia said.

He followed the plump woman up the stairs and into Zafiro’s room, where Tia lit a candle and pulled down the bed covers.

“I will undress her,” Tia stated. “You go to bed, Francisco. And leave your Night Master costume at the end of your bed. It is dirty. I will wash it so you can play in it again.”

He made no move to leave. Rather, he watched as Tia began to unbutton Zafiro’s blouse.

The memory of their sensuous evening in the meadow came to him in a vivid flash. He felt himself becoming aroused.

“Francisco, do as I say.”

Tia’s sharp command irritated and amused him at once. Reminding himself that he had no time to dally with Zafiro anyway, he headed out the door. “Night, Mama,” he called over his shoulder.

In his own room he loaded his Colts and waited until he heard no sounds save the whine of the night wind as it rushed past the windows and the occasional clucking of Jengibre, who sat comfortably in the middle of his pillow, presumably laying an egg. He left the room then and quietly checked the other bedrooms.

Everyone, including Tia, was fast asleep.

Downstairs, a glance at the clock on the shelf above the hearth told him it was almost midnight.

He had little time, for the herald of dawn presented a mighty enemy to a highwayman.

For the third time that day, he rode Coraje out of La Escondida. He headed north, where Maclovio had said the wealthy Spaniards lived, and he followed a twisting path that soon led him away from the foothills of the Sierras.

An hour later he came upon a hacienda. It rose from the ground and stretched toward heaven, a sprawling fortress made of all things old and beautiful. Washed in the silver glow of night, the ancient home fairly reeked of wealth.

A brisk breeze picked up Sawyer’s ebony satin cloak, and the sound of the lustrous, rippling fabric stimulated skills that Sawyer hadn’t used in eight long months. With the experience that had made him a legend in two countries, he laid down his plans in his mind.

Quickly but quietly, he urged Coraje toward the majestic estate. When the horse arrived into a shadowed area beneath a cluster of swaying trees, he withdrew from the hidden pocket on the inside of his cloak a black velvet mask. He hadn’t thought to use the mask earlier, when he’d rescued Zafiro from the bastards who’d taken her.

But he would need it tonight.

With the mask tied around his face he dismounted and slipped Coraje’s reins beneath a small stone container filled with miniature roses. If Coraje pulled back gently, the stallion would think he was well-secured.

But Sawyer knew that if the horse was intent on escaping he could do so with little problem.

Not making a sound, Sawyer approached the front of the house. Night creatures buzzed and chirped in the trees and bushes, and an old yellow dog crept out from behind a marble statue of St. Francis that stood near the door.

Sawyer watched the dog carefully, ready to bolt should the animal begin to bark. When the beast merely stared back at him, he held out his hand, smiling and whispering softly when the dog licked his fingers.

Reaching into the pocket inside his cloak once more, Sawyer took out a long metal pick. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d used the device and hoped he hadn’t forgotten how.

He ascended the seven stone steps that led to the huge, richly carved door and eased the pick into the brass lock. Concentrating intently on sounds and sensations, he listened for the clicks and quivers that would tell him he’d opened the lock.

He sensed he’d succeeded before any click or quiver reached his ears or fingers, and dropped the metal pick back into the pocket in his cloak. Slowly, he twisted the knob, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

His eyes quickly adjusted to the dark, and when his vision improved he knew he’d struck gold.

The house not only reeked of wealth, it glittered with it as well. Everything Sawyer saw, from the richly papered walls and elegant furniture to such trivial items as the small rug in front of the door and the hat stand, spoke of money.

He made his way through the house quickly and silently, finding expensive objects such as gold candlesticks, silver tableware, and bejeweled sit-arounds in various rooms. He didn’t touch the valuable household objects, however, for they would have to be sold.

What he wanted was cold, hard cash. Money Zafiro could spend immediately.

He found a handful of currency in a clay jar in the kitchen. He also found two dozing maids in the room, neither of whom so much as twitched in their sleep as he searched.

Much like a maze, with connecting corridors and rooms that opened into others, the hacienda offered countless places to investigate. Sawyer found more bills in a desk in an office, inside a velvet reticule he found in one of the salons, and in two pockets of a coat lying on the back of a chair in the dining room.

He then ascended the staircase. The first room he came to sheltered a baby and the infant’s sleeping nanny. The baby stirred restlessly in his cradle, making small whimpering sounds that told Sawyer he was about to cry and wake up the woman responsible for his care.

Sawyer made great haste to pick the baby up out of the cradle. Patting his little back, he walked the child around the room until the infant fell asleep again. Gently, he put the baby back in his bed and left the room.

He found nothing in the next five rooms he searched, but at last came upon the one bedroom he’d been looking for.

The
patrón
and
patrona
of the hacienda slept peacefully in their bed, which was canopied by a dark green swath of satin. Making not a sound, Sawyer crept into the room and swiftly found money in the dresser drawers, in several purses, and even a handful of coins scattered on the top of a vanity.

But he knew there was more. And his finely honed instincts told him exactly where to look for it.

He crossed the room and looked at the huge, magnificently framed portrait of a distinguished gentleman that hung on the wall above a satin settee. After taking the portrait down he didn’t see a safe in the wall.

But then, he hadn’t expected to.

He felt along the back of the heavy portrait, triumph soaring through him when he found a small slit in the velvet backing. Sliding his hand into the opening, he felt an object and pulled it out.

The flattened leather pouch was full of crisp bills, which he promptly slipped into his cloak.

One more place to look, and he would be done and gone.

He approached and knelt beside the bed. His movements slow and steady, he pushed his hand beneath the mattress, right under the sleeping owner of the hacienda. The man mumbled something in his sleep and rolled over closer to his wife.

The wife let out a loud snore that nearly stopped Sawyer’s heartbeat.

Perspiration trickling from his forehead, he pushed his arm farther between the two mattresses, smiling when he felt a hard container. Carefully, slowly, he pulled it out.

The money box brimmed with gold coins.

It was time to leave.

He exited the room and made his way down the dim corridor. As he neared the top of the staircase he heard a noise at the other end of the hall and turned to look.

Two people stared back at him, a young man wearing only a pair of ragged breeches and a young woman dressed in a gossamer night rail edged in fine lace.

The
patrón’s
daughter and some servant lad were obviously lovers.

And they’d caught him. The girl began to scream.

Sawyer whirled away from the stairs and dashed into one of the bedrooms he’d investigated earlier. The one with the doors that opened onto a balcony. He yanked the doors open, stepped out on the balcony, and whistled loud and long.

He then climbed onto the railing, and with one tremendous burst of strength he threw himself into the air.

He caught the tree branch neatly. As the branch bowed with his weight he whistled again.

Out of the night came Coraje, who stopped beneath the tree and snorted when Sawyer fell to the ground in front of him.

Sawyer scrambled to his feet and mounted. “You could have come a little closer so I could have landed right on your back,” he mumbled to the stallion.

With that he urged the black horse into an easy canter that soon became a thundering gallop.

And the inhabitants of the hacienda poured out of the estate just in time to see the legend who’d come back to life.

Z
afiro and her people stood
in the great room, unable to speak as they stared at the small mountain of currency and gold Sawyer had dumped on the table.

Tears filled the eyes of the old outlaws, each of them remembering the days when they, too, had enjoyed midnight forays such as the one Sawyer had committed only hours ago.